Failsafe
by Epsillion
Summary: The Justice League receives intel about a possible break-in at Encom. Batman goes to investigate and discovers a whole new world. His appearance, however, triggers a number of events that lead to the resurrection of both Tron and another program.
1. The Grid

"She's a failsafe."

First fanfic in a really long time. First thing I've written that isn't an essay or term paper. Forgive me.

Yeah. Batman is kinda OOC… but whatever. I'm not really sure how he would react in this situation.

Disclaimer: I own nothing from DC or Disney. But I would VERY much like if I could have the Flash, Batman, Tron, and Sam Flynn.

And anything that says –failsafe- is a page break!

"Are you sure it's there?"

"Positive."

"Alright. Beginning infiltration."

Batman clicked off his radio as the Batjet entered the target's airspace. It was 3 am, and the city was, for the most part, asleep. The only signs of life were the occasional car or pedestrian.

The city lights seemed nowhere near as alluring as the single strip of blue light falling down the side of the Encom building.

Shifting into autopilot, Batman opened the hatch and leapt into the sky. He was directly above the Encom building so landing was not much of a problem.

After touchdown Batman dashed into the shadows.

According to previous recon scans, Encom's security was a force not to be trifled with.

Encom, though not unheard of, laid low in terms of publicity since the disappearance of Kevin Flynn. That didn't stop Encom from producing some of the world's best technology and software.

Despite keeping out of public eye, Encom's products were incomparable. Even WayneTech struggled to keep up with their advances.

Needless to say, the Watchtower operated on Encom software, tweaked by Batman and other league members of course.

For some reason though, Flynn's son, Sam, decided to take over the company. It didn't seem to change much for Encom though, so things were fine with the company.

But Batman was here for another reason.

Evidently Gorilla Grodd was going to break in and steal some of the new products Encom was working on.

Shaking his head, Batman got to work. No need to think about Encom's history when there was a job to be done.

Scouting the area, Batman located the one door that led into the building according to the blueprints.

Batman opted for the industrial sized air vents instead.

He spent some odd minutes skulking through the vents and consulting his holographic blueprints when he realized that he had yet to encounter any security measures. That is, aside from the screws holding the air vents shut.

Then, he heard it: the telltale sound of footsteps, at least three people. They were hasty, but not too loud.

Encom was crafty, that was for sure.

Batman cursed in his head. A silent alarm should have been a given.

Forgoing the blueprints, he dashed through the maze of air vents and picked an exit at random.

Jumping down he took to the shadow of a wall. He found himself in a decent sized room with a window taking up an entire wall. A large computer terminal took up another, and some equipment sat opposite the terminal. The final wall held a lone door, probably the entrance.

Scanning the room, Batman found it odd that there was no visible camera in this room.

"Strange…" he trailed off.

"I should be able to find some things out see what going on with that terminal." He said as he made his way over and began to type.

As soon as he struck the first key, lines and lines of unreadable text flashed across the screen.

"Hmmm." He tried some shortcuts he had learned from tweaking the Encom software on the Watchtower.

More data flashed across the screen until it finally stopped on a login page.

Raising an eyebrow, Batman began his attempt to bypass the login by entering through Safe Mode. A simple method, but occasionally it did work.

Sensing something was off, Batman quickly turned to the door. He didn't notice his hand swipe at a sequence of oh-so-delicate keys on the keyboard.

No one was at the door, so he continued his attempt at hacking the terminal. He didn't have much time left… they already knew he entered the building through the vents. They could probably track his movements.

Distracted by the screen and the tapping of keys, Batman didn't notice the equipment behind him begin to boot up.

Only when the glow of the equipment lit up behind him did he turn around in time to be hit square in the chest.

"Damn."

-failsafe-

Everything felt different.

When Batman opened his eyes, he was assaulted by darkness. Then dimness and then a soft glow of light.

"…What the…" sitting up, Batman found that he was no longer in the Encom building.

Instead, he was in a decaying city of darkness and light.

"This is Batman to Watchtower, I repeat, Batman to Watchtower. Can anyone hear me?"

Static.

There was no use sitting around. Batman began to scout the area.

It was dark. Everything was dark. The only illumination was brought forth from the strips of light that adorned every building within eyesight.

Then, he saw some of the lights move. The Dark Knight quickly vanished into the shadows as people ran by.

Even the people wore strips of light?

Batman played the waiting game in an alley until he finally found a person that was on his own.

He pulled him into the alley.

In the soft glow of the man's clothes, Batman narrowed his eyes at the man's face.

His cheek looked like broken pixels in a computer image.

"What is this place?" he shook the man.

"Use-zer?" his voice sounded as if someone turned his voice box into a messed up auto-tuner. "on thaaa Grid?"

"...User… on the Grid?" the man's eyes widened. As Batman looked into them he could see more pixilation in the irises.

"Yezzz."

Batman didn't have time to inquire any more as something flew straight for his head. Throwing the man away, Batman barely had enough time to step away from the attack and into the shadows.

The object proceeded to bounce off an alley wall and make its way back to its owner.

"Get out of here, program." A familiar voice said a command, and the man Batman had taken ran out of sight.

Batman looked at his attacker and was surprised to come face to shadow with the owner of Encom, Sam Flynn.

"Unauthorized user, identify yourself and tell me what you're doing here or I'll derezz your ass."

Derezz?

Batman stepped forward and didn't expect Flynn to fly at him, tackle him to the ground, and point something akin to a lightsaber-disc to his neck.

He was Batman. He flipped Flynn over and knocked the disc from his hand, aiming his own Batarang at Flynn's own neck.

"Batman?" recognition was in the kid's eyes. No pixilation. "What the _hell_ are you doing on the Grid?"

"I could ask you what's going on here first." Batman put his weapon away and helped Flynn to his feet.

Immediately Flynn went to retrieve his own weapon before attaching it to his back.

"Oh God… how the hell do I explain _this _to _you?_" Batman raised an eyebrow beneath his cowl. "Urgh… just... just follow me to the office. It's across the city, so do you want a lift?"

Batman eyed the young Flynn with an obvious question in his gaze.

"Right…" Flynn removed what could rightfully be categorized as a baton from his leg. "I've never had to do this before… so bear with me." He looked nervous.

Sure, he was Batman. But he wasn't THAT scary.

"Get behind me and put your arms around my neck."

Hold that thought.

"What?"

"Look, I don't really know how _else_ to do this alright? Everyone else usually has their own ride or a vehicle with more than one seat!" Sam said with exasperation. "Just… do it."

Batman couldn't believe… "Fine."

As Batman reluctantly put his arms around the young man's neck, he could feel him tense up.

"You can let go as soon as we're on the road." Without waiting for a reply, Flynn lifted the baton before himself, lunged forward, and split the baton into two pieces.

In a flash of light and pixilation, Batman found himself on the back of a motorcycle in mere seconds.

Remembering Sam's earlier words, he released his hold around his neck and instead gripped his sides. He was still tense.

"…it's a lightcycle." He heard Sam say as they passed through the city.

In a matter of awkward minutes, they found themselves in front of none other than Flynn's arcade.

"Just get off, but be careful." Batman did as he was told while Flynn remained on the lightcycle. Then in a flash of light, Flynn stood with that same baton and refastened it to his leg. "Come on…"

Batman followed wordlessly as they entered the building.

It seemed like the generic arcade: old games everywhere, a jukebox, and old posters papering the walls.

Then they were upstairs, and Batman saw a computer terminal eerily similar to the one he tried to hack back at Encom.

"Explain." Those were Batman's first words as Sam collapsed on a sofa that sat against one of the walls.

Sam immediately threw his head into his hands.

"Well… as you might have guessed… I'm Sam Flynn. And you're Batman." Duh.

He looked up and stared Batman in the opaque lenses of his cowl.

"I take it _you're_ the one who broke into the building."

"Yes."

"Alright." He sighed. "You broke into my private computer room."

"I figured. There were no cameras."

"Yeah. Well… that computer terminal you tried to hack into isn't connected to Encom in any way. At least not anymore." He scratched his head. "Have you ever heard of the Grid?"

Batman thought for a moment.

"No." At least not before now.

"Of course… no one knew about the Grid except for my dad, Allen, and me…" Batman kept quiet, he knew when a story was about to be told.

"Long story short: years ago, my dad got zapped onto the Grid. He gets out of the Grid, becomes owner of Encom, and creates a new version of the Grid- this one. He gets trapped here and disappears from the outside world. I get zapped here. Shit happens. My dad dies, I get out, the Grid gets seriously fucked up. I take over Encom and here we are."

…the hell?

"The Grid used to be a part of Encom. After my dad got stuck here, he managed to separate it from Encom so now its just part of cyberspace. Ever since I took over, I've been trying to rebuild the Grid so I can reintegrate it back into Encom. The original Grid worked really well with Encom before, so I'm trying to get back that efficiency."

"So how did I end up here?"

"From what I could tell from the terminal, it was a complete accident."

"And how do we get out?"

"We make a run to the I/O tower. No big deal."

"Then let's go."

"Wow, no more questions?" Sam asked incredulously.

"As interesting as this place is, I have other things to deal with." Batman crossed his arms.

"That's right… you broke into Encom. Mind telling me why?" it was Sam's turn to cross his arms.

Well… he _was_ the owner…

"I received intel that Gorilla Grodd was going to break in and steal some of your newest software and equipment."

Sam raised a single eyebrow.

"So to counter this _you___break in instead?"

"Yes."

"You could've just explained the situation to me and _asked_." This is true…

Sam let out a heavy sigh.

"But you're the freaking Batman so who cares, right?" …what is up with this kid? "Look, I can get you to the I/O tower but we are NOT repeating that lightcycle issue. We're going to the Arena. I have a feeling that this won't be the only time you'll be here… so I might as well get you outfitted with some new clothes and gear."

"What are you talking about?"

"Just come with me. I'll dig out a spare lightcycle baton…" he paused. "Think you watched me close enough the last time to be able to use it?"

"What's the worst that could happen if I didn't?"

"You'd be sitting under a motorcycle? But it's really not that hard."

"Then yes, I can do it on my own. Just run, jump, and break it in half."

"Precisely." Flynn proceeded to rifle through a desk drawer before retrieving a baton, though looking decidedly older. "Lemme fix this up for you real quick…"

Batman watched with some degree of fascination as Flynn pinched the baton and a holographic screen appeared. From here Flynn continued his work, moving segments of code and data around before finally pinching the screen closed.

The baton then pixilated and reformed into an appearance similar to the one Flynn had strapped to his leg.

"Upgraded and ready to go." He handed the baton to Batman.

With this, the duo made their way outside and got into position.

In a flash Sam took off first. Batman looked at his own baton before jumping into action.

It was an odd feeling, the feeling of an entire motorcycle forming beneath you anyway.

It wasn't hard to drive though, and soon enough Batman was nose to nose with Sam.

Sam looked at him, and then gestured off into the distance. Across a bridge or walkway of some sort, Batman could make out what looked like a slightly decimated area.

Once again, in a matter of minutes they arrived.

Following Flynn's lead, they dispersed the lightcycles. Batman gave his own baton back to Sam. In response to this, Sam only shrugged and strapped them to his legs before proceeding in.

"I know it looks bad, but the games still go on. The Sirens are this way."

Batman didn't question anything, but continued to follow the man through the maze of hallways and flights of stairs.

Finally, Sam stopped at a large set of double doors.

"On second thought… I don't think you want the Sirens to do this for you." Sam then took on a troubled look. "Which means that I'll have to do this for you… my way is less flashy, but it is faster and less awkward… in theory."

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't want to be naked right?"

Batman gave him a deadpan stare.

"Stupid question. Come on." Sam opened the door and entered, Batman following behind, though a bit wary.

The room was white. In the center was a raised platform.

"I bet you can see where this is going…" Batman took this as his cue to stand on the platform. "Alright, just stand still."

Sam then went off the access panel in the wall. From that panel, a table protruded and on it laid various items. After noting the table's contents, Sam returned to Batman's side.

"I'm assuming you don't want much changed to your outfit, but bear with me." Batman gave him a blank stare. "Right."

Sam immediately got to work. Placing his palm before the platform, a holographic screen appeared around Batman. "I've turned your outfit into a code."

Walking around Batman, almost like a designer would, Sam looked at the vigilante's attire. "Can't do the cape. Too dangerous here… delete sequence." And the Dark Knight's cape was gone. "All black. Edit color scheme… #000000." A light flashed, and his entire outfit was black.

"Utility bel-"

"Don't even think about it." Batman stopped him before he could finish the sentence.

"Sorry, but the things in your belt just don't work here on the Grid. It's useless anyway." And the belt was gone before Batman could retort.

Batman narrowed his eyes at the young man before him.

"Don't beat me up man… I can derezz you at this point."

Batman still didn't understand what that meant, but it was obviously something bad.

Sam turned around to the table of items and grabbed a few before returning. The first two things he grabbed seemed to be shin guards. The next were arm guards, then a chest plate. Finally, something to attach to his back.

"This will be the last piece. Don't, I repeat _**don't**_, lose it or damage it in any way." He accessed another panel and this time a table was lowered from the ceiling. He picked something up off the table and held it up. It was a disc-like object similar to the one on Sam's back.

"This will be your identity disc. It has ALL of your information on it: your traits, yours codes, and your memories. It is also your best weapon here, great for throwing and mêlée attacks. If you throw it, be prepared to catch it when it comes back to you. It will derezz, or destroy, any enemy it touches. Only you, or another user will be spared. Granted you'll probably bleed a lot if one hits you anyway. It's one of the differences between us and the programs: we bleed, the break."

Batman eyed the seemingly innocent disc as Sam held it up for examination. Then, Sam walked behind Batman and twisted the disc into place onto the attachment on his back.

Instantly, his new suit lit up with ribbons of light.

The hologram around him disappeared.

His eyes flashed and everything looked sharper.

He turned around to look at Sam.

"What did you do to me?"

Sam stared him in the eyes.

"You're a User now. Don't die."


	2. Wait

Rematerializing into the real world from cyberspace was definitely an odd feeling.

After Flynn had geared him up, Batman somehow found himself in an arena battling the young man. The kid really wasn't that bad. In the process he picked up even more info about the Grid. It truly was an odd place.

Sometime later Flynn noted that it was time to return before the portal was to close. Apparently getting stuck on the Grid would be very bad.

Batman now found himself back at Encom, in the same room he had been in so many hours ago. In reality it really wasn't so long ago. He could still hear the guards in the distance. Some of the info he had gathered from Flynn included the time differences.

And then there was a beam of light.

And Sam Flynn now stood beside him.

"I'll create a distraction, think you can get out of here without being detected?" Flynn asked while looking through his special Encom PDA. "We haven't been gone long, so they're still on the watch. Looks like no other troubles…"

Batman nodded, it seemed Gorilla Grodd wasn't going to be here tonight. "I'll be going then."

"Alright. Don't come back here anytime soon." Flynn opened the door, peeked both ways, and signaled that the coast was clear. After receiving a nod of affirmation from Batman, Flynn took his own leave.

Moments later, Batman made his way back into the air vents. Taking a few turns, he easily dropped from another vent into a hallway.

No guards were in sight, but guards watching the cameras were likely to spot him if he didn't move quickly.

Sneaking through the hallways of Encom, Batman also took the time to admire the building itself. It was very high tech, sleek, and modern; the signature blue-white glow only added to the building's splendor.

At this point, Batman ducked into a corner office and made for the small balcony outside. Once he made it into the open night air, he closed the glass door and looked to the sky.

Observing the ledges, he also took note of the position. He was currently at the corner of the building where the signature strip of blue light trailed down. Had the night been young, he would have been easily spotted as a speck of black racing to the top.

Instead of the Grapple Gun, from his utility belt Batman withdrew the remote to the Batjet. Taking a breath, he leapt from the railing and plunged towards the streets below, but instead of the pavement he landed in the cockpit of his jet.

-failsafe-

The Grid.

A digital frontier.

A place created to further the advancement of the world.

A place wrought with destruction after the rule and destruction of Clu2.

A dark metropolis by the name of TRON City was in ruin, and a sea of data was churning endlessly around it: the Sea of Simulation.

On the shores of this sea, a program lay. The circuits and lights of his suit flickered on and off as he struggled to his feet. He carefully pulled himself free of the ISO-infecting waters, though they did nothing to harm his own systems.

Only when he was a fair distance away from the dark waters did he wretch the dark helmet from his head. He looked upon the city with disbelief and horror, seeing for the first time in a long time with his own eyes. Turning around, he spotted the I/O tower beginning to power down.

He was too late.

He had been too far down beneath the water to make it to the Users in time, especially in his current state.

He struggled to his feet. There was only one thing to do at this point, and that was to try and make it to Flynn's Arcade in one piece.

-failsafe-

Sam was annoyed.

Quorra frowned as she followed Sam into the Encom building. He had told her about the break in and it worried her.

But Sam? Sam wasn't worried about it. He was annoyed.

After getting Quorra into what they called 'Here', 'Outside', and 'The User-world,' it had taken A LOT of work to get Quorra into society.

Well, in actuality Quorra got used to being Outside in an alarming amount of time. It was probably due to her time with his father. No, what took a lot of work was forging her paperwork, other important documents and past history.

As far as anyone knew, Quorra 'Flynn' was Sam's VERY distant cousin who Sam had recently been reconnected with.

Quorra, jokingly, once said that she and Sam really were technically related. After all, she was created on the Grid, which was created by his father. Though Sam deflected, saying that Quorra's existence happened 'naturally' through a set of random factors.

Quorra said that his father technically brought about those factors that led to her existence.

In the end Sam gave up on trying to win this argument.

But all of that wasn't why Sam was annoyed. No, Sam was annoyed because now he had a member of the Justice League find out about the Grid.

Now one thing Quorra couldn't really wrap her head around was the Justice League- or anything related to heroes and villains. It had taken weeks of news coverage for her to comprehend that people in costumes ran around saving the day. A story for another day.

But now that someone in the League knew about the Grid, there was no telling what would happen. Especially since the person that found out was Batman.

"What am I going to do Quorra?" Sam asked as they entered the elevator. First stop of the day: his office, as always. "I mean, I've only been back to the Grid two times since I brought you back, and it's still a complete mess in there. I've barely figured out how to rewrite segments of code _while_ I'm in there. And now Batman knows. Oh god… I fought Batman…"

Quorra merely watched with faint amusement as Sam realized that he had battled _Batman_ in the arena. Without a doubt, had Batman known the rules of the Grid Sam would probably not be here.

"I told him everything… then told him not to come back. Damn, he probably thinks that I'm trying to do some illegal stuff like that asshole Lex Luthor."

Before Quorra could comment on this, the elevator doors opened and they were met with an entire floor of Encom employees, doing their daily work at their computer terminals.

Sam merely sighed and made his way to his office on the other side of the room.

Upon taking several steps though, a type of controlled chaos broke loose.

It all started with one computer monitor. It flickered from a page of text, likely a Word document, to a blank page of light blue.

Then, all of the other monitors flickered to the same page.

"Shit!" Sam exclaimed. "Everyone! Figure this out!" No one needed to be told twice. Immediately every programmer on the floor tried to break through the blank wall of blue screen.

Sam, deciding to be a hands-on CEO, pulled an employee from a terminal and set to work trying to figure out what was wrong.

"It's an image file or something!" Sam knew the voice; it was Dillinger Jr., coming out of his office to announce his findings. "Whatever it is its layered on top of the desktop and not letting anything from underneath out!"

"I can't find out what's up with this file!" another programmer yelled.

Then Sam found it.

"It's not the file!" He slammed his hands on the desk. "It's the image!" Striking one key, every monitor as far as he could see flickered to a new image. "It's like a GIF…. Or a flash game…" he trailed off. "You just need to know where to click…"

On each and every screen were four squares in a slightly darker shade of blue.

"Sam…" Quorra breathed as she reached for his shoulder and leaned into his ear. "It's-"

"I know this…." Sam cut her off and stood straight.

It disappeared as quickly as it came. Immediately all the monitors flickered back to their original states. The whole incident had happened in a span of one minute and 32.7 seconds…

But everyone saw the four squares that came together to form a T.

"Tron."


	3. Found You

Hi, back with another chapter. Please don't hate me for what I'm about to do.

Also, I barely know a thing about programming.

And I'm also sorry its so short.

**-failsafe-**

The rest of the day went surprisingly quickly. After the hacking incident, Sam had everyone do all the general procedures in the event something like this were to occur.

They scanned all the computers and servers for viruses, checked the software and hardware, looked for any faults in the systems, and of course, filed stacks of paperwork.

In the end, they found that nothing was stolen from the company, but no one managed to trace the source of the hack.

The scare and its ensuing issues took up the majority of the day and left both Sam and Quorra on edge.

By the end of the day, they both punched the clock and said their goodbyes to the employees. Instead of leaving the office, though, Sam made his way to his private terminal.

"Sam, are you sure about this?" Quorra watched Sam warily as he began to enter the codes into the terminal.

"Yeah, I'm sure. You saw that image Quorra. He's alive. He's sending a message to us."

"But it could be a trap and you know it!"

"Of course I know."

"Sam… you're not going to back down from this, are you?"

"No Quorra. I'm not. I have to do this. That message could mean something important. The fact that it got OUT of the Grid and onto all the stations here is something big in itself." Sam paused. "If it's not him, then what if it is something more dangerous? It got out, Quorra. If something as simple as a picture can get out, than who knows what else will."

Quorra frowned and stepped away from the charging laser.

"Don't let me get stuck in there." Sam flashed her a small smile before being zapped back onto the Grid once again.

-**failsafe**-

As always, the beam landed him in the decaying city. Sam frowned as he took in his surroundings.

The Encom laser terminal he had been using always teleported him here. It was still amazing that Sam had even _found_ it. The terminal had been in a storage unit in the Encom basement. It was decidedly much older than the one in arcade, so Sam had to do quite a few repairs. Despite its age, though, it was still closer to home and more easily accessible- and it connected to a better power source than the one back at the arcade.

The only thing wrong with it was that the laser kept dropping him by a dark alley.

And it annoyed Sam to hell.

**-failsafe-**

Sam had been walking for about five minutes now. The city was mostly silent; all of its inhabitants were likely in recharge.

Sam didn't quite know for sure- his perception of time was always messed up when he was on the Grid.

He didn't see the program when it tackled him to the ground.

The program's hand was at his neck, and an ID disc was suspended above and ready to attack.

"Identify." The digitally warped voice commanded.

Sam looked up into the face of the dark, somehow _unlit_ program. On its face was some type of dark visor, blocking Sam's view into its eyes.

"User ID: 002 Sam Flynn." He ground out the words carefully; the grip on his neck was firm.

After a moment of silence, Sam saw flashes of data run across the visor of his attacker.

"Confirmed." The voice responded.

Immediately Sam's neck was released and the program got off of him.

The program even offered a hand to assist Sam, which he reluctantly took.

Getting to his feet, Sam eyed the program carefully.

At this point, it replaced the disc onto its back and Sam watched in awe as the circuits lit up.

Ribbons of light trailed up and down slender limbs and curves. The visor on his attackers face lit up and turned from it's dark tint to crystal clear. Long, dark hair was tied into a ponytail and lit with sparse strands of light.

"Please come with me." Her voice was no longer warbled and digitized but smooth and even, with a slight hint of what Sam would describe as autotune.

Sam stood stalk still as she turned away from him and removed a baton from her leg.

When she took off on her light cycle Sam finally came back to his mind and sped after her on his own bike.

**-failsafe-**

It didn't take long to reach their destination.

Sam was actually a little surprised at where they had ended up.

Flynn's Arcade.

Dispersing the bikes, Sam followed the program into the building. They passed the rows of games and treaded up a flight of stairs, and into the office.

The female program merely stood to the side of the door and motioned for Sam to enter.

"He's here." She said, closing the door and casually leaning against it.

Sam looked around the room to find whom she was addressing. His eyes scanned the desk first, and then drifted towards the couch on the right wall.

"Tron."

He was lying on the couch, decidedly looking worse for wear.

His helmet was gone, lying on the ground a few feet away. The now blue-white circuits of his flickered on and off occasionally, and there were significant amounts of damaged code all over him. On his right check was a small gash of pixilation, and his left side (above his hip and under his pecks) was almost completely gone- pixilated and see-through.

"Thank you. You may continue with your patrol now." Tron's voice was coarse and heavily digitized.

The female program nodded and exited the room.

"Tron." Sam said again.

Tron looked straight into Sam's eyes and smiled. "It is good to finally meet you properly Sam."

Sam was speechless for a while. He just stood there and stared at the damaged form of his childhood hero.

"What's… going on?" Sam finally spoke. He hadn't known what to say so he settled for the easiest one he could think of.

Tron looked thoughtful for a moment.

"I take it the message we sent got through?"

Sam raised an eyebrow. "So that _was_ you! How… how did you hack into Encom like that?" by now Sam had made his way to the desk and took a seat in the office chair.

"Oh… that. The message was an emergency beacon designed by your father."

"Dad? But how?"

Tron sighed and carefully moved into a sitting position. Sam inwardly winced when he saw two dead pixels fall from his cheek.

"Many cycles ago, when your father worked between Encom and the Grid, he designed a special emergency beacon for me. In the event that something of great importance was to happen on the Grid, and your father was away, I was to activate it. Your father installed it on Alan-One's login account and rigged it so that the beacon could be activated remotely- even if the Grid isn't connected to Encom."

Sam sat wide-eyed at the revelation. The company had been hacked from the inside. "…it figures that Dad would do something like that." He finally said. "But how did all this happen? How are you still alive? Who was that program that brought me here? Why did you send that beacon?"

All of Sam's questions were rapid fire and Tron sat confusedly, trying to figure out which one to answer first.

"Sam, please slow down and give me a chance to explain myself." Sam immediately stopped and brought his full attention to the program before him

Tron let out a heavy sigh before beginning to explain.

"Well, after your last visit to the Grid, I had finally managed to drag myself out of the Sea of Simulation. It is not exactly the easiest thing to do, injury or no. But by the time I finally got out, you had already made it to the I/O tower and left." Sam frowned at this. The last time he was on the Grid was just last night. The night Batman had gotten himself zapped into the digital world. Who knows how long that could have been here on the Grid?

"At that point I knew I had to get back here, to the arcade, and get you to come back as soon as possible. The city… has become a much more dangerous place since everything has happened."

"So… what do you need me for?" Sam asked carefully.

Tron looked down.

"Look around. The Grid is falling apart." And Sam understood.

"That's what this is about?" Sam stood. "Tron, I'm doing my best to repair all of the damage. I don't know what I'm doing, but it is going to take time. I'm working from the outside too." Tron looked up at this, surprise evident in his eyes.

"I apologize, I didn't know. I've… been in quite the predicament as of late. Its hard to remember things after the… _incident._"

Sam immediately strode over to Tron's side and sat by him on the couch.

"Don't worry about it. It really is a surprise to see you, you know. When Quorra told me that you were Rinzler, I thought you derezzed." Tron tensed at this. Rinzler wasn't exactly his finest cycle of time.

"It is fine Sam. But now I must continue."

"By all means."

Tron nodded.

"After I activated the beacon, I had to try to get the city back into some semblance of order. As you can see, in my current state I am unable to do so." Tron paused and absently flicked as a loose pixel on his side. It broke away like glass.

"I had to prematurely activate your father's last creation."

Sam shuddered to a halt.

"What?"

Tron sighed and looked into Sam's eyes again.

"That female program that brought you here, she is your father's last gift to the Grid."

…..

"...what?"

"Sam… before Clu took over, before the Grid was in all this trouble, your father created her. She was built to be my subordinate."

"So… she's your partner?"

"You could say that. The program that you met is the test version. Your father was still in the process of working out all the glitches and bugs in her programming. I'm actually rather surprised that she is functioning so well, given her state."

Sam bit his lip.

"Where was she when Clu betrayed you? If my Dad created her and she's on your side, how come she didn't do anything to help you?"

Tron seemed to think about his question for a minute before replying.

"In all honesty, Flynn kept her a secret for the longest time. He hadn't told anyone what he was up to- not me or Clu. In fact, Flynn had only just told me about his pet project before everything went crazy. He had showed me where she was being kept, and told me about all of her functions and how she was going to take most of the Grid work off my hands until he could find a replacement for me. We had only just left the arcade when Clu betrayed us."

Sam nodded and then spoke, "Dad kept her here?"

"Yes, in fact, he kept her in that closet over there." Tron pointed to the closet that sat just left of the entryway into the office.

"Ok. That's just _weird_." Sam said in reply. Leave it to his father to hide 'presents' in the closet. "So what's her name?"

Tron stopped and remained very still.

"She doesn't exactly have one."

Sam raised another eyebrow. "She has to have a name."

Tron's eyebrows furrowed. "Of course she does. But Flynn never told me what it was, and I never got the chance to find out. Her activation file just says 'Beta', which isn't far off because she really is just a beta-test program. As such… I've taken to calling her that."

Sam's eyebrow rose higher. "What, Beta?"

"Yes."

"Well…. I guess that works. Trust my dad to make something harder to understand."

"Agreed. When 'introducing' me to her, all he said was 'She's just a beta right now, but once I get her up and running everything will be a lot easier for you, my friend.'"

Sam thought back to what Tron had said earlier.

"So she's a security program like you?"

"Exactly. She's designed to aid me in protecting the Grid. She's out on patrol right now. Ever since I activated her, she has stopped many bugs and viruses from getting into the city. Despite her own glitches and bugs, she's quite the power house."

Sam nodded, remembering her earlier attack on him.

The User and program sat in silence for a while. Tron simply sat, and Sam stared at Tron's damages.

"Tron," he started. "Give me your disc."

Tron snapped his attention to the young User beside him and stared in disbelief.

"Don't give me that look. Just let me take a look at you and see if I can repair that damage."

At this Tron looked down as his lap and snapped the disc off his back. Wordlessly, he handed it off to Sam.

Immediately, the User set to work.

Seconds later, his eyes widened at the mass of ridiculously complex code making up the security program next to him.

"…Alan sure did one hell of a job when he wrote up your code." Sam sighed and began to shift through the data, looking for the damaged sections.

"You actually have your father to thank for that. After I was transferred to this new Grid system, Flynn upgraded me significantly." Came Tron's reply.

"Well damn."

-failsafe-

It was about 10 minutes later that Sam looked up from the lines of broken code being projected from Tron's disc. His eyes stung and his head hurt.

"_Damn_ my dad did a good job." Sam actually took a moment to face palm.

Tron looked over at the User worriedly.

"Is there a problem?" He asked.

Sam let out a sort of strangled noise. "It looks like my dad _really_ went to town with your codex. It is so complex; I don't think I can do much to repair it right now. I'd need to study the rest of your code and understand _that_ before I can even attempt to fix what's been damaged." Sam set the disc down on his lap.

"I can't fix you like my dad fixed Quorra. She was an ISO, so her codex worked differently. If your code was easier for me to understand, than I could just write up a patch to fix it." Sam rubbed his eyes. "I just need a day or two to look over your codes and study them. After I get a general idea of what I need to recreate, I'll have you up and running in no time."

Sam picked up the disc once again and twirled it around his finger.

"…The terminal at the desk has information on both Beta and me. Feel free to look through it."

Sam perked up at this news and dashed over to the computer. Immediately he pulled up a screen and located Tron's file.

"This… will help immensely." Sam said in awe.

This folder contained his father's notes concerning Tron, as well as back ups and old copies of the program. There were even notes on how to improve Tron's functions that could be implemented in his next upgrade.

Searching through the many files, Sam finally found his dad's notes on Tron complex coding.

"Oh thank god I can understand these!"

**-failsafe-**

tbc…

Again, I'm very sorry about what I did but hey, it fits into my vision of the story as well as moves things along.

Updates will have no set schedule. I started college and will be busy, but I'll try to write chapters in my down time.

Please know that unless I say otherwise, I wont stop this story. My minimum quota as of now is at LEAST one chapter a month…

As always, Fave, Alert, Review 3


	4. Her

Sam was exhausted. He had been going over his father's notes for hours now. Although he had gotten a better grasp on Tron's programming, he needed to take a break to think.

Not to mention that Sam wasn't exactly sure when the portal was going to close. His sense of time on the Grid _sucked_.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Sam rose from his place at the desk. "Ok Tron, I'm going back Outside now. I'll continue to work on the Grid, as well as figure out how I'm going to fix you. I'll make sure to come back as soon as I can."

Tron looked away from a small holo-screen he had in his lap. "Very well. Beta will escort you to the I/O Tower."

Sam frowned. "I'll be ok, you don't need to get her for that."

"It's fine. I'm already here." Two sets of eyes shot over to the doorway where the new program stood. "I have finished my patrol and everything is in order. There should be no problems getting to the Tower."

Tron nodded and Sam sighed. "Ok then. Let's get going. I'll be seeing you Tron." Sam said with a wave of his hand.

"As will I… Sam." Tron nodded from his place on the couch.

-**failsafe**-

By the time Sam had made it downstairs and outside to the streets of Tron City, Beta was already on her lightcycle waiting for him. Sam frowned a little, but wordlessly conjured his own bike. Within seconds they were off.

Beta took the lead, zooming through the now deserted streets.

The drive was uneventful, but Sam could still see a difference in the city. It was calmer.

He stared ahead at the lightcycle in front of him. It was a standard bike, nothing special. She maintained a quick but leisurely speed. They would reach their destination soon.

-**failsafe**-

They had finally made it to the base of the I/O Tower. After Sam had made his way back into the Grid, he had reconstructed the Tower.

Now, it was literally a tower and not just a floating platform in the sky. The average program couldn't enter though, not without certain pass codes. Plus, there was just no elevator.

In order to get to the top, one had to enter a password onto a secret terminal. From there, a tow line would drop from the top of the tower. Of course he could still fly to the top if he had wanted, but he would have to go through a web of security.

Sam had decided he wanted to a little more creative with the entry to the Tower. To this day he didn't understand why he had chosen this particular design.

Entering the code, two cables fell. Sam and Beta stepped into the looped ends, held tight, and were off to the top.

In no time Sam was standing before the beam of light that radiated from the Tower.

"Thanks for the escort… I guess I'll be seeing you." Sam gave Beta a small wave that she returned with a nod. Frowning slightly, Sam made his way down the path to the beam.

"User—Sam." Beta's voice stopped Sam when he was only a few feet away from the portal. Slowly, he turned to look at her. Their eyes locked, Beta's visor pulled up from her eyes. "You can fix him, right?"

The sincerity in her question made Sam's eyes widen in surprise. Seeing this, Beta averted her gaze.

"Yeah. I'll fix him up and he'll be as good as new." At this, Beta's eyes met with his once again.

"Thank you." And Sam stepped into the portal.

Sam nodded, feeling the corner of his mouth tug up into a small smile.

-**failsafe**-

"So how was it?" Sam blinked and found Quorra sitting in a chair, a magazine in her lap and her eyes staring straight into his.

"It was him. He's alive." Sam leaned back against the terminal and brought a hand to his temple. "He's really beat up though… I'm going to fix him."

Quorra bit her lip.

"And… Rinzler?"

Sam let the question hang in the air for a moment.

"I think he's gone. When I was looking through Tron's disc I didn't see anything that looked like malicious segments of code… just broken pieces of data that I need to fix."

Quorra seemed thoughtful.

"And the Grid?"

Sam blinked.

"Well, it is actually better since the last time I was there. The programs, they're actually behaving. The city is calmer." At this, Quorra raised an eyebrow.

"Tron brought order back into the city?" she asked in surprise. "In the state he's in?"

"No. As it turns out that my dad has this, this backup program. Tron activated it. She's been patrolling the city."

Quorra stood up and the magazine fell to the ground.

"You're not talking about _Her_ are you?"

-**failsafe**-

Sam's eye widened at Quorra's outburst.

"'Her'?" He repeated.

Quorra bit her lip and looked away.

"I can't believe it… she's functional?" Sam nodded in response.

"Quorra. Tell me what this is all about." Sam demanded as Quorra fell back into her chair.

"That program. It's the one your father created right? The one that's an Add-On to Tron?"

Sam nodded.

Quorra bit her lip again.

"…He told me about her." Quorra started, twiddling her thumbs. "He said that she probably could've helped us fight CLU."

Sam raised an eyebrow at this and took a seat against a wall. "Why didn't you guys activate her then?"

"It isn't like I didn't suggest that. You father…. He built her very specifically. He said she was meant to function under Tron, and Tron only. She is supposed to follow _his_ orders, work for _him_, and help _him._ He said that in her state, if we were to activate her… she would've been useless. He said that she was _nothing_ without Tron."

The light bulb in Sam's head flickered on.

That could explain why Beta had asked about Tron's recovery. She would cease to function without him, especially since she was still in an incomplete beta form. It was just survival. But then just what was that sincerity in her eyes?

"Of course, we thought Tron had been derezzed by Clu. She wouldn't have been able to help us. In the end, your father had decided that breaking into the city to activate her was too much trouble. He would've had to re-write a lot of her programming for her to function. There was no way to get in, secure her, and get out in a feasible amount of time." Quorra paused. "It might have been a good thing too… since Tron was Rinzler…"

"My head hurts," was Sam's exasperated reply. "I need to just sit and think. I've been studying Tron's code for repair and _that_ data alone makes me see numbers every time I blink."

He stood from his seat on the floor.

"Let's just go home for now."

-**failsafe**-

"Did you get the schematics for the building?"

"Of course. What do you take me for?" a snorted reply.

"An idiot." A snarky response.

"Shut up." An 'original' reply.

"Whatever, how does it look?"

An irritated sigh. "Encom doesn't play around when it comes to security. It looks like all those years of the Flynn kid breaking in taught them a few good lessons. And that's just according to last year's plans."

A shuffle of paper.

"Since the kid decided to take over the company… well just have a look for yourself."

A moment of silence.

"This kid is just a little shit isn't he?"

"You bet. Getting the old papers was ridiculous. Getting the new ones was even worse."

"Either way, we'll get in."

"Of course."

-**failsafe**-

tbc

Sorry guys. I'm late with this chapter… and this is all I have to show for it. Urgh. School is kicking my butt.

Anyway, I hope that last section wasn't too confusing to read. But hey, you didn't think I would forget about the villains who are supposed to be breaking in did you? This IS a crossover.

As always, review, alert, fave. 3


	5. Moving Along

"So has there been any weird activity going on that Encom place?"

They had been keeping watch over the building for a few days, yet there still was no sign of any disturbances or break-ins.

"Not from what I can tell." Batman said as he glanced over a few monitors.

"Jeez, do you think that intel is even reliable anymore? It has already been a week." Flash said as he leaned against a terminal.

"We can't take any chances. If Grodd were to get his hands on any of the technology that Encom has, we could be in real trouble with his intellect."

Flash shrugged and looked over a few monitors.

"So I take it you found something that was worth protecting?"

He found an entire digital world. "Yes."

"And the man of few words says one!" Flash chuckled before pointed at a small blue light flickering on the keyboard. "What's that?"

An alert. "It is from the sensor I hid in Encom Tower." Pressing the button, the scenes on the monitors switched places and the foremost one displayed the latest data on the company.

Apparently there had been a security breach in the office. All of the computers froze and the monitors displayed a symbol from a prominent video game of Encom's past.

"Impossible." Batman's eyes narrowed beneath his cowl.

"What is it?" Flash asked as he examined the data reports.

"The sensor I planted is supposed to relay information instantly." He pointed at the screen. "It says that this hacking incident happened 5 days ago."

He could see Flash begin to connect the dots.

"Signal jammer?"

"I don't think so. If that were the case then I wouldn't have gotten this data at all. If anything, there's just a delay."

"Think Grodd got in without us knowing? Messed around a bit with their systems?"

"No. This isn't Grodd's style. And the hack involved something from one of Encom's video games." Batman stared at the screen shot taken from the incident. There were four squares, arranged to look like a T.

"Yeah. Tron right?" Flash asked, pointing at the T. "Great game. Loved the lightcycles."

Beneath the opaque lenses of his mask, Batman's eyes narrowed.

Lightcycles.

The Grid.

"You know… maybe it's just Encom's security doing its thing. They are supposed to have the most sophisticated security around. It's probably because of that, that your bug isn't working the way it should."

"Plausible." Flash really knew his stuff when he actually _thought_. It was true that Batman had to specifically tune the bug to get through Encom's security.

"What-a-ya-know. I'm a genius." Flash grinning and Batman just shook his head.

-**failsafe**-

"So how exactly do you plan on getting in?"

"I was just going schedule a meeting with the Flynn boy. It shouldn't be too hard to drop a hacker bug and have it steal the codes we need to break in."

"Fool. Did you not look at any of the data I gathered? They scan for any electric devices upon entry to the building and they have some assistant hold onto them and follow you around. Quite genius really. A good way to confiscate items while still giving guests access to their equipment."

"If that's the case, I'll just have you make a phone call. It shouldn't be too difficult hide a bug in my cell phone."

"That wont work either. Upon entry they actually give you a Bluetooth earpiece. A bloody _Bluetooth earpiece._ Encom doesn't play around."

"…I guess he rumors about Encom's secrecy are not to be dismissed so easily… what is wrong with the people there?"

"The Bluetooth thing was the kid's idea. I told you. He's just a little shit."

"Agreed."

-**failsafe**-

Four days.

It had been that long since Sam left Tron and Beta on the Grid. There was still more to be done. Plenty more.

But he still had to deal with the company.

And the stunt Tron pulled by activating the emergency beacon still had everyone on high alert. It was both a good and bad thing that it couldn't be traced back to Alan. Good because no one would find the source, bad because everyone was still freaked out over it.

Even so, Sam still got a better idea on the format of Tron's code. Things made much more sense after a good night's rest and actually organizing the data. With some re-writing and a quick reboot, Tron could be fixed now that he actually understood everything. Well, as long as he was still in the same state Sam had left him in anyway.

Any more movement resulting in loss of pixilation would require more time recreating what was lost. If it were kept to a minimum then that would definitely make the repairs run much faster.

Unfortunately, Sam wouldn't be able to return to the Grid until tomorrow night.

He was booked solid with meetings today. There were interviews, his daily lecture from Alan, a few stops at the development levels, and the run-down of _tomorrow's_ meeting with his secretary.

Evidently he had received a few calls asking for meetings to be scheduled with Lex Luthor _and___Bruce Wayne.

Awesome.

The _lunatic _and the one that was eerily similar to Sam himself.

Fuck.

-**failsafe**-

Quorra frowned as she stared at the chunk of metal in front of her. This stupid thing was what connected the Grid to Outside.

If she could just get rid of it… no. There was still the one at the arcade.

She bit her lip and looked away.

Regardless of her new life Outside… the Grid still used to be her home.

She didn't _want_ to feel any sort of attachment to that place, mainly because of all the horrors and losses, but she did regardless.

Sam would fix the Grid, and maybe -just maybe- he would let it go.

They needed to move on from the Grid. Sure, the place could lead to great things… but look at what happened to the Creator.

Quorra didn't want Sam to suffer the same fate.

Hopefully after fixing Tron and the Grid, he would leave well enough alone.

-**failsafe**-

Tron stared out over the remains of the city named in his honor.

Slowly but surely, order was being restored. And true to Sam's promise, Tron began to see some changes to the decimated structures. Every few cycles, a building or two would pulse with light. Then another cycle would pass and a grid would erect itself in the original image of the building. Another cycle, and layers were added. Cycle after cycle the layers would build until the building stood tall, proud, and new.

It took time, but it was still progress.

Then when Sam came back, he would repair Tron himself.

Tron didn't quite know what to do he was going to do with himself when _that_ happened.

He was a protector. That much was true, but in the past there had been talks about finding a replacement.

Would Tron be able to retire and live peacefully on the newly repaired Grid?

Or would he bite the bullet and continue to defend his home on the new system?

That particular thought made him think of his early days and all he had left behind when he was transferred…

The opening of the office door roused Tron from this thoughts.

Beta merely entered the room and nodded in his direction before heading over to her closet for a recharge cycle.

"Beta," she froze at the sound of her 'name'. "Report."

She released her grip on the doorknob and stood at attention.

"…three more buildings have finished reconstruction. Two others have just started the first phase. The basic programs are beginning to calm down with the reconstruction. There has been little activity outside the city."

Tron nodded. "Thank you. Please go and recharge now, you did well today."

She entered the small closet.

Tron stared at the door.

She seemed slower today.

-**failsafe**-

When Lex Luthor arrived before the Encom building, he allowed himself to appreciate its structure. It was a well designed, modern, and attractive building.

He entered with confidence and an attitude that screamed CEO of a multi-billion-dollar company.

Security stopped him about 20 feet in.

Procedure first.

They got his name and ID, created his guest badge, emptied his pockets, and passed his belongings to a young man.

"Please step through the scanner." The gruff security guard pointed at the frame. Luthor walked through with no hassle. Not a single alarm went off.

The security guard nodded and Lex put his shoes back on (what was this place, an airport?) while the guard retrieved a small earpiece.

"Here you are sir," he held the device out. "This is a special Encom earpiece. I've already synced it to your phone. If someone calls, it'll go straight to this."

Luthor pretended to be surprised. "I knew Encom had strict policies, but this is impressive." He fasted the device to his ear. "Can I make outgoing calls on this?"

The guard shook his head. "For that, you must speak to Mr. Davis here." He pointed to the young man that held all of Luthor's belongings.

"If you must make a phone call, I'll direct you to a company phone. You'll have to use your guest ID badge for it to work." Davis explained. "Anyway, please follow me. I'll escort you to Mr. Bradley's office for your meeting."

Luthor halted and narrowed his eyes for a brief second before catching up with Davis.

-**failsafe**-

"It's nice to finally meet you Mr. Flynn." Sam flinched at the use of his last name.

"Uh, pleasure is all mine Mr. Wayne." Bruce Wayne took the offered hand with a strong grip.

"Please, call me Bruce."

"Only if you call me Sam."

"Deal." Sam let a small smile show before gesturing for Bruce to take a seat.

"So, Bruce, what brings you to Encom today?" Sam watched Bruce carefully.

Of course the owner of Wayne Enterprises would want to get in on the Encom action. Thus far the company had done well with keeping away from others like LexCorp or Wayne Enterprises.

"I'm sure you have an idea."

Sam leaned back in his chair. "Well, tell me what you've got."

-**failsafe**-

"Hello Mr. Luthor, welcome to Encom!" Alan smiled and shook the CEO's hand.

"Thank you Mr. Bradley." They took their seats. "I'm sorry to bring this up, but I was under the impression that my meeting would be with Mr. Flynn."

Alan frowned a bit.

"Yes, well unfortunately Mr. Flynn has had a plethora of meetings so I've had to take on a couple for him. It seems his secretary had accidently double-booked the boy for this time."

"Double-booked?"

"Ah, yes. He should be starting his meeting my Bruce Wayne right about now."

"How unfortunate."

"It was an honest mistake. By the time the error had been noticed it was took late to reschedule your meeting."

Luthor raised an eyebrow. "My meeting?"

Alan let out a short chuckle. "Well, Sam has a first-come-first-serve policy when it comes to meetings and scheduling."

"That doesn't seem very professional."

"Well, it sort of is. Meetings are _always_ first come first serve when it comes to time slots. In your case, Mr. Wayne got there first. Simple really."

It didn't mean it wasn't irritating. He had just gotten pawned off.

"But I'm sure I will be able to satisfy your reason for being here."

"Perhaps."

-**failsafe**-

"So that's it? You just want permission to expand on our existing products?" Sam crossed his arms. "I'm sorry, but no. We're _already_ doing that."

Bruce frowned a little. "That's not _precisely_ what I meant. You see, your company is so far ahead in technological advances that it is pretty hard to keep up. I'm asking more for a joint partnership in terms of the application of your technology."

"And by applications you mean?"

"Computers, vehicles, robots, weapons, defense systems, medical equipment..." Bruce tried to 'sneak' in that bit about weaponry. It didn't work.

"Weapons? No. That is not what Encom is about. This company is all about advances in computer software. We don't need to develop weapons." Sam narrowed his eyes.

"Ok. So maybe not weapons. But think about it. A partnership between your programmers and my R&D department could bring out a multitude of opportunities. If I could get my people to examine your work more closely, I'm sure they could apply it to other practical things aside from computers. We could even land government contracts."

Sam sighed.

"What makes you think we need government contracts?" And to tell the truth… they already had a few. They were for creating anti-virus, hack-proof programs for the White House and the Pentagon… but Bruce Wayne didn't need to know that. "We do just fine without the extra business. Our software sells just fine."

"I suppose that's true. But think of the possibilities Sam." He was.

"I'll think about it. But know that I can't give you a definitive answer without consulting my team."

"Of course." Bruce showed off another one of his playboy smiles. Sam quirked an eyebrow.

"Forgive me for saying this but… You know, you're a lot less annoying in person than you are in the papers."

"I see my reputation has preceded me, though I could say the same for you Sam Flynn." A chuckle. "It wasn't that long ago that you broke into this very building and gave the world a 'gift' right?"

"Touché Wayne. Touché."

"Back to the last names?"

"It was for dramatic affect."

"Understood."

"But really. It _is_ strange to see you being so serious compared to all of the articles and news coverage."

"Its always the media. I do know how I must act in a professional environment."

"I'm… still trying to learn how get there myself."

-**failsafe**-

"Beta?"

There was knocking.

"Beta. Wake up."

The door opened.

"Beta? Beta, wake up. Override Code 000: Good morning."

Her eyes finally opened.

-**failsafe**-

tbc…

There you have it. A little more on the crossover side of the fic. Hope you enjoyed.

I kinda suck at dialogue so please forgive me.

As always, review, fave, alert, and have a nice day 3


	6. Patched And Repaired

When Sam finally managed to make it back onto the Grid, he half expected Beta to both greet him and escort him to the arcade. Instead, he found himself making his way over there alone.

On the bright side, it looked like the restoration program he had written up was doing a good job. Most of the dilapidated buildings still remained, but a decent amount of them had been restored. He noted that the restored buildings were sporadic; one newly repaired building sat amongst three or four destroyed ones. It was likely that it was because he made the program focus on buildings that could be repaired the quickest… oh well.

Finally arriving at the arcade, Sam knew something was amiss. He didn't know why, but something felt wrong. When he made it the office, he understood.

Tron was sitting in a heap of broken pixels by Beta's open closet door.

Beta herself was set up in what looked like a recharging station. She wasn't moving at all and as Sam moved closer he noticed that her normally green eyes were half lidded and dark- as if they were turned off.

"What happened?" Sam asked, kneeling down to Tron's level. "You shouldn't be moving around."

Tron actually sent a mild glare Sam's way.

"She didn't wake up for patrol. I called to her several times. I had to check on her." Sam's brows furrowed at this news.

"Let's get you back to the couch before you fall apart." Sam started, offering Tron a hand. "I know you must be worried, but it looks like she's not going anywhere… and you are breaking into _pieces_." Sam stopped Tron before he could retort and helped the program back to his seat.

Looking back, Sam winced at the pixels that littered the floor like glass. Yes. Tron was going to make fixing him a lot more difficult. Letting out a heavy sigh, he made his way back towards Beta while trying to avoid stepping on the glass-like pixels.

"She won't respond to any commands. I had to use an Override Code just for her to open her eyes."

Sam stared at her. She looked like a _puppet_. And then it _dawned_ on him. Beta's eyes were now wide open. Still blank, but wide open.

"Tron… has Beta been acting strangely lately? Anything before today when you tried to wake her?"

He heard another pixel break upon impact with the floor.

"Yes. Before she put herself into recharge she had just come back from patrolling the city. She had almost forgotten to give me a report before I stopped her. It is unlike her to forget- and now that I'm processing it… it is stranger because the command prompt for the reports was an order from me."

"From you? That means any prompts received from you would be written into her routine until you terminated the command."

"Exactly. Being this slow to process data is becoming a nuisance."

"And I'll be sure to upgrade you once I repair the major damage later." Tron seemed to perk up at that. "But was there anything else out of the ordinary?" He gestured to the program in the closet. "Because-" Sam stopped short.

Beta's eyes were now partially lidded at the top, the slightest tinge of familiar green surfacing, and her lips were ever so slightly apart.

"She seemed slower…"

And it clicked.

"She's _frozen_." Sam said suddenly. "Just like when you bog a computer down by running too many programs at once!" He spared a glace in Tron's direction, noting the security program's confused gaze.

"She's just a beta program, so of course she has glitches and bugs in her systems. She must have encountered something that triggered this… glitch? Yeah, its probably a glitch." Sam paused and strolled back over to Tron. "And in the state she's in now, she isn't going anywhere so we are going to patch you up first."

"But-"

"No. She can wait a little longer. She's just slow; it isn't doing anything harmful to her from what I can tell. You have pieces of yourself scattered across the floor. Deal with it." Sam cut him off before anything and held his out for the disc. "Now hand it over."

Tron stared at the hand in a moment of hesitation before reaching back for his disc.

-**failsafe**-

"…pieces…"

"….slower…"

"….glitch….. bug…"

"…wait…"

-**failsafe**-

Sam sat at the desk with Tron's disc in hand. Brows furrowed, he searched through the masses of broken red data. Allowing his eyes to flick towards the program, he frowned.

Tron was just lying there, almost as if he was asleep.

Which, technically, he was. Sam had Tron go into sleep mode while he worked on the repairs. After he finished he would do a soft reboot so as to give Tron's body a chance to recover before waking.

If he had done all this while Tron was awake, it would probably be a much more exhausting experience.

Leaning back, Sam took a break from the swirl of red data to rest his eyes.

Beta was still in the closet and had only barely moved in the last half hour, according to Sam's internal clock. She hadn't really done much aside from slow blinking.

Letting out a sigh, Sam got back to work. It wasn't without a little debate that he had gotten Tron to agree to let himself be repaired first. Of course the security program had made a few valid points, but Sam wouldn't have it any other way.

The Grid would be ok without Beta out on patrol for a few hours. Especially according to the reports and repairs. There hadn't been very many incidents involving the basic programs, and the city's main defense did well enough to keep Grid bugs out of the city since it had been strengthened. It would only be a problem if a particularly malicious virus tried to gain access…

"Oh well." Sam said as he re-wrote a patch of code. "Just means I've gotta fix these two before that happens."

-**failsafe**-

"So what did you learn at Encom?"

The meeting consisted of Batman, Flash, J'onn, Superman, and Green Arrow. An odd assortment, but they were still figuring out who else would be assisting.

"The Flynn kid is still new to running the company. He barely knows what he's doing. He also doesn't want anything to do with merging with either Wayne Enterprises or LexCorp, that much I know for sure."

There were nods around the room.

"That's good. I know that Encom has been pretty quiet in the media unless it involved the boy, but its good to know he isn't letting the other companies push him around." Clark stated. "From what I've heard of the kid, he's got a lot of potential. I just hope he uses it the right way."

"But wait, what about this technology that supposed to be stolen? Do we even know what it is yet? I mean, obviously no one has broken into that place but what are we even supposed to be keeping an eye on?" Flash munched on several chocolate chip cookies. "I mean I know Encom is really respectable and all their products are top class… but do we know that this technology is worth protecting? Wait… that came out wrong." He swallowed another cookie. "Is it something that we should pursue, or something that we should let Encom and the police take care of?"

Everyone seemed to think about it.

"He's got a good point." Green Arrow said, pointing at the speedster.

"Encom specializes in computer software, but they do have departments for technology, and a division for video games." J'onn supplied. "Because Encom is such a leader in their field, it'll be difficult to find out what may at risk."

"Even the video games?" Clark arched an eyebrow.

"Well, probably not that."

"Hey, give Encom some credit. They may not do video games often, but when they do they are AMAZING." Flash grinned around another cookie. "I heard that they are planning something for the Space Paranoids anniversary!"

"Regardless, I don't think that a group of criminals will be after the latest video game release." Green Arrow replied.

"True!"

"According to published news, Encom wont be working on a new OS until next year. I haven't heard anything about any other software. Technology wise, the lines are silent." Batman pulled up a few holo-screens. Sparse information was displayed on each one. "Either they really aren't up to anything, or the company is ridiculously good at keeping things under wraps. There haven't even been whispers of what's going on."

"What about rumors?" Clark asked. "With a company that prestigious, there have to be rumors going around about what they'll churn out next. Even Flash said there was a rumor about a new video game."

Batman wordlessly summoned another holo-screen and entered a search. Data flashed by quickly in blur of letters and digits before finally stopping on a website.

"Flynn Lives?"

"Just a website about the conspiracy behind Kevin Flynn's disappearance."

The screen dissipated in a flash of numbers and letters before settling on another website.

"NET Rumors?"

"It looks like a forum dedicated to spreading rumors on the Internet, mostly about technology." J'onn squinted his eye. "Is that a thread for the Watchtower?"

It was.

"Not the point." Batman navigated the website and found the page with threads solely about Encom.

"Wow. A lot of them are about Kevin Flynn's disappearance and his son taking over." Ollie noted as Batman scrolled down the screen. About 182 pages worth of rumors.

Pausing, Batman entered a few commands and the page shifted. "Narrowed down the results to rumors associated with upcoming products since six months ago."

There were still about 25 pages to sort through.

-**failsafe**-

The Grid was mostly silent aside from the humming. As Sam worked, all he really heard was the humming that came from both Tron and Beta, and the little blips that came with repairing the damages in Tron's disc. It had taken a while but there was only about 25% of the damage left to go through. Although he had lost track of time, he was sure that he was still able to reach the portal.

Either way, it would do well for him to take a break.

Setting Tron's disc down, Sam stretched and made his way over to Beta's closet.

She still hadn't made much progress. Her eyes were now half-lidded but had returned to the normal shade of green. Other than that, her head was tilted off to the side.

If Sam didn't know any better, he would've mistaken her for some sort of confused woman asking a question and waiting for an answer.

Frowning, Sam took a look at Beta's setup.

She seemed to be in some sort of recliner that gave the illusion of her feet touching the ground when they were actually resting on a plate of metal. She didn't have any wires connected to her, but he did notice that certain lines of light on her suit matched up with the ones on the setup.

Grabbing Beta by the hand, Sam gently pulled her forward. She easily fell forward into his chest and Sam twitched an eyebrow.

"I wasn't expecting that to be so easy." He brought his hand up to her shoulders and held he back slightly; thank goodness she was still sitting in the contraption because she was surprisingly heavy as fuck. Looking back to her face, her expression had not changed.

Sam let out another sigh and looked back to the closet to get a better look. There were more lighted circuit lines that seemed to match up with the patterns on her suit, and it didn't look comfortable at all, but Sam caught sight of the circular indentation in the backrest. Looking down at Beta's back, he carefully clicked the disc off. Disc in hand, he gently guided Beta back into her reclining position and twirled her disc around his finger.

Still no response.

Strolling back to the desk were Tron's own disc lay, Sam sat and examined Beta's. Instead of the large circuit lines he was accustomed to seeing on most identity discs, Beta's had intricate trails of thin light. Apparently while Tron's suit was based on sparse lighting and circuitry, Beta's was all fine lines. The distinctions definitely set them apart from all the other programs.

Tron's lack of lighting was probably to help him blend into the darkness of the city more easily. Beta's design was one that Sam didn't quite understand, but he did know that she could turn off her lights at will and that alone was different.

Looking down at himself, Sam decided that he should probably find a way to wear clothes other then the Grid Warrior getup he had on. It wasn't unpleasant to wear, but it sure didn't mean that he enjoyed wearing it for hours on end.

Setting both discs aside, Sam reached for his own and found himself in something akin to jeans, a t-shirt, and a jacket about 20 minutes later. He had his own lines of light placed strategically as a band around one sleeve, a stripe going down one leg, and a few specks on his shoes.

"Better."

And so he resumed his work on Tron's disc. It wouldn't take that much longer.

All he had to do was finished patching a few strands of data, and rewrite a sequence of code…. Done.

Pulling up the command menu Sam prepped Tron for a reboot sequence. As the system began to shut down and restart, Sam watched in satisfaction as Tron's body began to rebuild itself.

It was different from the reconstruction of Quorra's arm. It started as lines of light crossing each other and forming grids. Then, he could see the segments of code that had just fixed appear and merge together. Thousand of dots littered Tron's body and formed together, building up into pixels. From there the pixels came to together like the pieces of a puzzle fitted over the grid.

It had taken about 20 minutes for the reconstruction to complete.

The few circuits on Tron's suit shined with light before abruptly being clicked off. It took a moment or two, but the lights slowly flickered back to life and went back to the normal setting. The humming got louder as the start up sequence initiated.

Sam made to over to Tron's side just as his eyes slid open.

"Rise and shine. Welcome back."

Tron gave Sam a bleary look as his eyes lit up with color. The bright blue was almost shocking; with the dark hair and outfit they popped quite a bit. Sam could have sworn that his eyes had not been that blue before, and he was also positive that he had not done anything to Tron's aesthetic data.

"Hello." His voice had been repaired nicely. It was smooth and clear, but still had a touch of computerized sound. "Repairs have been completed?" Tron sat up to give his newly repaired body a look over.

"Yeah, I also went ahead and did a basic upgrade on you. You should be able to process faster and all of that other good stuff, but the major upgrade will have to come later." Sam handed Tron his disc.

"Thank you." The disc clicked back into place on Tron's back as he stood. "Everything feels normal… it has been the best I've felt in a long time."

"Good to know. Now that you're back online, I can get started on her." Sam jabbed a thumb in Beta's direction. She really did look kind of… pathetic. By this time her eyes were closed again; she looked like she was asleep.

Tron nodded and let his eyes drag across the room to the closet space. "Will you require my assistance?"

Sam blinked.

"Uh… not particularly. We already figured out the problem, and with my dad's notes that you gave me it shouldn't be too hard to fix her up." Sam picked up Beta's disc.

"…I will go on patrol." He seemed a bit torn. "It will give me a chance to make sure nothing went wrong the repairs and I can get a better look at the city's restoration.

"Oh, ok. That makes sense I guess." Sam pulled the baton off his leg. "I haven't fixed your light cycle yet."

"Thank you." Tron took the baton and was off.

It was weird. Sam expected Tron to stay and watch over Beta's repairs. Especially considering how concerned he had seemed earlier. After being fixed, Tron sure was acting strange.

Sam could only hope that he didn't mess something up when he was working with the endless mass of data that was Tron.

He couldn't worry about it though. Beta was still stuck in slow motion. Taking a deep breath, Sam sat himself down once again and immersed himself into swirl of data that was Beta.

"Please let this be easier than Tron."

No such luck.

Pulling up the folder that contained his father's notes, Sam began to pull his hair out in frustration.

-**failsafe**-

asdfghjkl;

I have the main point of this fic all figured out. It is just filling in the little details between that has been killing me. Urgh. Hope you guys liked this chapter. The story is moving a long a bit slower then I had intended, so please bear with me.

So far we haven't reached the main point… but on the bright side Tron is fixed! Stay tuned for more!


	7. Anti-Freeze

Tron sped through the dilapidated city with ease. Even though the city was slowly rebuilding, Tron could not help but feel distress.

As he scoured the city and took in its destruction he could only feel guilt. After all, he was the one that failed to stop CLU and even fell victim to his reprogramming.

Gripping the handle bars in frustration, Tron easily took a sharp turn and made his way to the edge of the city. From there he cruised along the city walls and surveyed them for damage or weak points of entry.

With the city's internal problems, it would not do for any malicious software to enter the city.

Seeing his city after all this time and knowing that he was partly responsible only made Tron want to redeem himself. This place was his namesake, and one of Flynn's greatest creations. And although there were talks of retirement, he would put those plans on hold until his city was once again the pinnacle of the Grid.

Tron frowned beneath his helmet as he patrolled. While it was good for him to get out and reacquaint himself with the world, patrolling gave him too much thinking time. How much of the Grid had been destroyed? Was is just Tron City, or had the other metropolitans been affected? For that matter, did Clu's rule reach beyond Tron City as well? What about Argon City? Or Arjia City?

There were so many holes. And there was only so much Tron could remember from his time as Rinzler.

As he titled the light cycle to make a gentle turn, Tron noticed a program leaning against one of the city walls.

-failsafe-

Sam sighed as he stopping scrolling through Beta's 'manual.'

Beta's data wasn't as difficult as he initially imagined. Most of her operating system was based on following commands. Mainly inputs from Tron. She had quite a few interesting segments of data, but Sam would have to initiate them in order to find out there functions. But from the notes, they mostly seemed like anti-virus operations.

He had already fixed her freezing problem and worked out 3 other bugs that would likely cause her to freeze along the way, as well as tweaked a few things to correct some minor run time issues. Hopefully those fixes would be enough to ensure that she wouldn't freeze again.

At the moment she was in reboot. It wouldn't be very long before she would be up and running again.

Rubbing his eyes, Sam groaned in frustration. He had way too much in his life going on.

Between running a Fortune 500 company, going back to school and taking night classes, and his business lectures from Alan, working on the Grid was not easy.

Sam flinched at the thought of his business lessons with Alan. They were a good call, but damn did they take up a lot of time. In order for Sam to stand up to the big shots like Lex Luthor and Bruce Wayne, he would definitely need a better understanding of how to run the company.

And he still needed to discuss Wayne's proposal with Alan when he got back…

Looking back to his father's notes, Sam raised an eyebrow at a particular feature.

"Non-essential data?"

-failsafe-

The world began to light up again. Noises turned into words.

"Hey, how are you feeling?"

Beta focused her eyes and stared at the User before her. "All system running at optimal level. Initiating internal scan." Sam blinked as Beta remained seated, he eye trained on the opposite wall. "Scan complete." She blinked and got up from her recharge system.

"Good. You seem to be functioning properly again." Sam said as Beta gave him a confused look. "Tron said that you were having trouble booting up. I went in and fixed a couple of bugs that might have caused your freeze, so you should be fine now."

"I froze?" Beta asked, more to herself than to Sam. She gazed at her recharge station and frowned.

"Yeah, do you know what could have cause it? I could-" Sam was stopped by Beta dashing over to the large office window. "What are you—"

He didn't get to finish when Beta slashed through the window with her light disc and swan dived out onto the street.

Running to the window, Sam just barely caught sight of the lightcycle rounding a corner down the street.

-failsafe-

Hi everyone! I'm so sorry but not updating in almost a year! A lot has happened and I just couldn't find time to work on this.

I had a chapter ready in JANUARY but then my computer started acting up. I had to take it to the Genius Bar about an hour away from where I live and they ended up having to re-install my OS.

I thought I had backed up everything onto my external hard drive, but evidently I forgot to save the new chapter plus all the notes I made for future chapters.

So that was really annoying.

Then I got swamped with school work and there was a wedding and then summer but I had to do work for a scholarship and then family crap and then I started school again and CHEMISTRY SUCKS SO MUCH.

So once again, I apologize for my absence and the lateness of this chapter. The length of which is quite pitiful.

I'll try to write more, but winter finals are approaching. I will also have to try and remember all the things I had planned for future chapters. While I still have a beginning, middle, and end… I need to fill in the gaps between.

Thanks for reading!


	8. Trojan

Tron slowed his bike down and stopped a few meters away from the program. "Identify yourself," he said in his most commanding voice. After being away for so long it would be best to establish some sort of authority. He wondered if any programs would even remember who he was. He could only guess how Beta had kept the programs in line.

The lone program merely give Tron a once over before lowering his gaze to the ground.

Tron frowned and got off this bike. "Program, answer me!" He said as he approached. When he was about 3 feet away, the program looked up. A crooked smile broke out across his face and his dark eyes flashed red. In a moment he pushed off the wall and swung a fist.

-**failsafe**-

It didn't take long for Sam to find Beta's light trail, but it was a bit difficult to keep up. She was flying down the roads at top speed and taking sharp turns. Even with all of his experience, Sam couldn't risk smashing into a wall at the speed Beta was going.

All he could tell right now was that they were weaving through the city. It didn't look like Beta had any specific destination in mind. Sam had to wonder if he hadn't messed anything up when he fiddled with her disc.

Sam's thoughts were interrupted as Beta took another sharp turn, followed by another. Now they were following the wall that surrounded the city. After a few minutes of just traveling against the wall, Sam took the chance to match his pace with Beta.

This time her light cycle was different from the one she used when they first met. This one looked similar to his father's, but was not enclosed. Instead it was open and almost completely black with only a few thin circuits of light decorating its body. Even her cycle helmet was different. It wasn't like the full cover helmet he himself wore, or the strangely shaped ones Tron and Quorra had worn. It technically wasn't even a helmet at all, just the same visor and headpiece that she wore all the time, only the visor had been tinted black. It matched the strange lighting of her suit.

"Beta, what's going on here?" he asked when he pulled up next to her.

"There's a strange program roaming the city. When I attempted contact everything went slow." She replied, scanning the area before her. "I need to find it before something happens."

"Are you sure it was the program that caused it? I fixed a few bugs in your system when I rebooted you." Sam saw her grip on the bike tighten out of the corner of his eye.

"Thus far I have not encountered any issues when dealing with problematic programs. I cannot recall it clearly, but that program was not a standard inhabitant of Tron City."

Sam must have had struck some sort of nerve. Beta's tone seemed almost insulted, and Sam had more or less insinuated that her status as a beta program meant that she might be unreliable. He didn't mean it that way… but it came out that way.

Ouch.

"Uh, if it makes you feel any better Tron is out on patrol somewhere." To Sam's ear it sounded more like a question. And it kind of was.

"I know." Suddenly Beta turned dark. The ribbons of light on her suit, on her bike, and in her hair went black.

With the roar of her engine, she revved up her speed and shot off before Sam could get in another word.

-**failsafe**-

Tron nimbly flipped as the rogue program brandished a strange spear-like weapon. It had only been a few seconds after the initial attack when Tron activated his own disc. The strange weapon was something new. Standard programs weren't able to use modified gear unless they were game participants or city sentries. Even then Tron had never seen something like this. It almost looked like a weapon from Flynn's world.

The program smirked and ran forward, using his speed to jump to the air. Reaching the peak on his leap he swung his weapon in an arc and Tron quickly leapt out of its path. The moment the spear met the ground something strange happened. The ground cracked and shattered, pixelating a few times until the impact area turned black.

His opponent merely grinned at the damage and lifted the weapon to rest on his shoulder. It was a brief rest, as he slowly began to stalk towards Tron.

Separating his discs, Tron immediately took aim and let one disc fly. In a one swift movement the rogue program spun his spear and deflected the disc, sending it the ground and skidding away. In a flash he was rushing forward, spear pointed directly at Tron's chest.

Definitely not a good place to get hit.

Flipping back, Tron studied the programs fighting style. The spear was an extension. It had a far reach and was easy for him to wield. Tron wasn't sure what type of combat would be best, but mid-range seemed to be out of the question unless being stabbed is part of the plan. Long range would be tricky since the spear could deflect his discs without being damaged. Close quarters might prove to be efficient with both discs, so long as the sheer size of the spear makes movement difficult.

Too much speculation, not enough data.

First things first: get his other disc.

-**failsafe**-

Sam was lost.

Without Beta's light trail to follow he was fucking lost.

"This is mildly embarrassing." He grumbled. "Next chance I get I'm going to write up some sort of GPS function."

He sped up and followed the city wall. Since Beta went dark and took off, it was all he could do. Hopefully he'd be able to circle the city and catch something.

The explosion of light about 2 miles away was probably what he should've been looking for. Revving up his bike for more power, Sam raced ahead to get his answers.

-**failsafe**-

This program fought well. It was different from anything he'd seen before. It was fast and nimble, and very fast to learn Tron's fighting style. That spear was what was kept Tron from getting any closer. The program wielded it expertly, using it to maintain distance, parry, and still attack. For Tron to win, he'd have to somehow get it away from him.

His options were to take it by force, knock it out of his grasp, or somehow have the program throw it. None of the options were too pleasing.

Not that is mattered. All too suddenly the program was thrown to the city wall and exploded into a blinding light.

Beta immediately skidded by side and watched as her lightcycle shattered into pieces against the wall.

"Stay away." She warned and she cautiously stepped forward.

"Wha-"

"Beta! Tron!" Sam screeched to a halt behind them. "What's going on here?"

Before either of the Protectors could answer, the sound of shattering pixels caught their attention.

From the wreckage of the lightcycle the rouge program emerged. He was worse for wear, dead pixels falling away from his body, and he began to laugh. He stepped forward, and with every step he took the pixels came back one by one. However, they weren't forming his original body. Instead they expanded beyond that.

Beta readied her disk and took her battle stance as the transformation completed. "Get. Back." She warned once again, keeping her eyes trained on the centaur-like beast in front of the group. "It's a Trojan Horse."

The Trojan continued to laugh and raised its spear, charging at Beta. Immediately she reacted and rushed forward, deflecting the spear but losing her own footing.

"Trojan horses look like that?" Sam and Tron rushed forward to offer their aid, but the beast reared up. The threating hooves kept the two at bay while Beta stood.

"I said GET. BACK. If this program runs wild then it'll find and open a door into the city. You must avoid it or you'll be knocked out." Beta's disk flew through the air but was merely deflected and returned to her.

"I know what a Trojan horse is!" Sam yelled as he and Tron dodged another hoof.

Without warning the malware reared up once again, cackling into the sky, before taking off in a gallop along the wall. Before Sam could react Beta was already chasing the beast on foot.

"Sam, we must go after them. That program is fast and Beta lost use of her lightcycle. We must apprehend it before it finds the door and opens it." Sam was already on his bike and ready to go as Tron mounted his own.

-**failsafe**-

Despite her extra speed Beta was no match for the horse without her lightcycle. There had to be another way to catch up. Jumping onto a nearby awning she took to the roofs. She needed the altitude to help keep an eye on the wake of cracked black tracks the horse left behind.

"I was programmed for protection. There has to be something I'm missing. I am a beta… there's something I should be testing…"

And it clicked. In a burst of speed leapt from the rooftop.

-**failsafe**-

Tron and Sam caught up to the malware in no time, but Beta was nowhere to be seen.

"We didn't pass her did we?" Sam asked as they slowed their speed slightly, trailing behind the horse in order to monitor its movements.

"No. I would've received an alert. She has to be somewhere…"

Before they knew it two strips of light flashed from the top of a building before striking the malware in its side. Upon contact the circuits of Beta's suit lit up and she sent the program and herself to the ground.

Immediately the two boys skidded to a stop and dispersed their vehicles. Beta lay a few feet from the Trojan and carefully stood- a gash of missing pixels from her arm.

The Trojan was up in a matter of moments as well, his entire left arm missing.

"Beta! How did you-"

"I said stay back!" She ran forward and the Trojan took off once more. "No!" she screamed, as the chase was on once again.

Tron was already by her side as she clicked her disk back into place. "I will handle this, there's no way you can chase him down on foot."

"Do not underestimate me Tron. I may be under your command, but I was designed to fight just like you." Beta took off in a run once again but something changed. Instead of simple boots, her shoes altered themselves. In a flash a pair of skates pixelated soon Beta was long gone.

"Ok, what the hell was that?" Sam asked as Tron watched in surprise.

"We must catch up." Tron merely replied. And they were off.

Speeding along the wall once again it was only a matter of time until they caught up with the pair.

Beta was skating ribbons of light around the Trojan, corralling him within the confines of light prison by jumping and twirling all around. But the Trojan would not back down; instead he slammed his spear into the makeshift gates.

Sam and Tron exchanged looks, nodded, and deployed their own light trails. Carefully, yet speedily, they circled the horse and replaced the netting Beta created. But soon enough, they ran out of room and the light walls became too dangerous.

The Trojan continued to shatter the walls, bits and pieces of pixels of him breaking away upon contact. By this time Beta had made her way to the top of a nearby building. Tron and Sam watched as she jumped, her body curling into a tight spiral and unfurling just in time to land kick straight to the Trojan's head.

But it wasn't enough. Beta didn't expect the shaft of the spear to slam into her own side, sending her crashing to the ground. Glass-like pixels littered the floor as she slid across and finally came to a stop- just before hitting a lightwall.

The Trojan reared up again, ready to smash Beta into derezzed bits, but was immediately grounded by three lightdiscs severing one of his hind legs. Tron and Sam watched as the program flailed, unable to break into the walls of light and their disks now beyond their reach.

Lightcycle mounted, Sam immediately began to rewrite data and add a gun of sorts to the vehicle. In moments he was blasting shots through the walls to give Tron access.

Beta, however, wasn't done yet. As she stood, pixels fell from her side like a cascading waterfall. Skates ready, she charged forward and dove to the ground. As she slid across the floor she swept her leg upwards. The resulting ribbon of light easily severed another leg.

As that one shattered Tron swooped in and pulled Beta away from the remaining flailing limbs.

"I'm not done yet!" She yelled as she wretched her arm from Tron's grip.

"Beta, I will finish this." He said firmly, eyeing his discs on the other side of the flailing beast.

But Beta took no heed, instead disconnecting her own disc and charging forward on foot. Tron immediately tried to follow but instead watched in shock as the Trojan brought up his spear once again. In retaliation Beta leapt and broke he disk into two halves. Now dagger-like weapons, one half deflected the spear threatening to smash her into the ground, and the other sank into the Trojan's face. The two crashed to the ground in an unceremonious heap.

Everything was quiet. Beta's heavy breathing mixed with the sound of broken glass as she withdrew the blade.

All at once the Trojan Horse shattered and Beta slumped over the pile of pixels.

"Hey!" Sam yelled as he and Tron dashed to her side. Half buried in the remains of the malware, Beta merely gazed up at the two with a wary look on her face.

"I told you… I could handle it." Beta let out a heavy sigh before beginning to haul herself up into a sitting position with Tron's aid, bits and pieces of her own mixing into the pile below.

"You were foolish. How could Flynn have programmed you to act so recklessly?" Tron carefully looked over Beta's injuries. Gashes of her body were torn away- she shouldn't technically even be able to function. "You're lucky you weren't derezzed by some of these hits."

Sam kneeled and held out his hand. "Disc." Beta simply fused the halves together and placed the disc onto Sam's outstretched palm. "I'm going to have to start some repairs here. It's too risky to move you right now. I can't believe you have this much non-essential data…"

In a matter of moments Sam had Beta's very being on display, carefully fixing the masses of red error codes.

"Non-essential data?" Tron asked, watching Sam tap into the disc.

"It means that she can take more hits. If she isn't hit anywhere important… she can still function. She could get an arm or leg cut off and she'd still be able to move, think, and process… that's why she hasn't derezzed with all of these injuries" Beta simply leaned heavily against Tron, eyes dimming slightly. "I think that you actually have that feature too. It may be why you were able to survive the Sea of Simulation."

Tron searched his programming for evidence of such abilities. It made sense… the blow to the neck from CLU should've ended him in the first place, but he somehow survived. His memory bank was still a little fuzzy at the time, so he couldn't accurately analyze the situation. A moment more of searching and he found it: the non-essential data destruction. In the event he was injured, so long as the attack was not fatal, he would still be able to function.

"Luckily most of this non-essential data is easy to replicate: its a lot of cosmetic and mobility stuff. A reboot should fix her up, and when we get back to the arcade I can run more tests and do some backups." Sam carefully clicked the disc onto Beta's back and all of her circuits flickered off. A moment later they glowed white, and the broken bits around her injuries began to close.

"She needs more experience." Tron watched as the pixels expanded. "She was almost derezzed."

Sam looked up from the healing process to stare Tron in the eye.

"Did my dad really tell you what she truly capable of?"

-**failsafe**-

So here I am over a year later. I apologize but it looks like updates are going to be sporadic. I've been very busy since I graduated from community college last year. I've since started at a university and have also gotten new jobs. All of this keeps me pretty busy (and I also try to make room for a few anime cons) so I end up writing a few things at a time at like 3am…

But at least we're getting somewhere! After this, some of the story will start to pick up. I just needed to lay down some groundwork.

Thanks for reading!


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